4.12.2014

Colorado is booming. As Reuters reported yesterday 'Colorado Will Bring In More Than $100 Million In Marijuana Tax Revenues This Year'. Remember these figures are only accounting the revenue directly generated from marijuana sales not the other huge tax revenues that are created by the spin-off industries and the income and other taxes, both state and national, that are being generated through the increased employment or the reduction is the costs associated with unemployment.

The recreational pot industry itself is of course hiring, but there's also the all the banks and their investors who are making big money from the loans to start businesses and buy equipment to service the booming pot-tourism etc. None of these revenues or savings to the Colorado government balance sheet will show up immediately or even ever be directly attributed to pot legalization. In the coming years Colorado's government coffers will swell allowing them to finance increased public services, like improved schools and roads, like housing the homeless, like...well the public weal enjoyed by the jobs and feelings of self-worth they engender.

Colorado's economy is enjoying a huge boost across all sectors generally. Motels are full in what is usually an off season, new tour bus companies can't find enough qualified drivers, restaurants have lineups, gas stations too. Imagine how much Domino's, Frito Lay and others are raking in from the America's munchie crazed tourists flocking to Colorado. Despite the low snowfall, even the ski resorts are booming. All across America state governments are drooling. New pot-legalization referendums are in various stages of planning in almost every state across the country.

Colorado is and has been a swing state for decades because the population there is almost exactly 50/50 Republican/Democrat. As my friends tell me, it's 50/50 in a lotta ways in addition to the conservative/progressive divide. Culturally the difference between say Boulder and Grand Junction are far greater than the mileage.

Interestingly before last year's referendum the majority of right-wing voters were dead set against legalization [though the large libertarian minority among them favored it] and the majority of left-wing voters were in favor [though a minority of them didn't]. Basically the libertarians and the most progressive lefties united on this issue and Colorado's booming economy resulted. Hopefully this trend will continue to expand into other geographic areas and seemingly divided political arenas locally, regionally and nationally.

On an ironic note, now that the typically conservative voters are seeing the huge uptick in economic activity, jobs, and tax revenues their opinions are quickly changing. Recent polls are showing that conservative voters are stampeding onto legalization bandwagon. The typically progressive voters, many of whom have been pot smokers for years if not decades, have decidedly mixed feelings. In the run-up to the referendum the pothead demographic only saw the benefits of no longer being bust-able and easy access and discounted the downsides. Right now, in these early, heady, days of legalization, with the tourist's buying up weed willy-nilly and the local supply unable to meet both local and tourist demands, prices are skyrocketing and the once enthusiastic potheads are far less happy. This imbalance too shall pass because all Coloradians are now legally able to grow the weed in their gardens and by this fall and early winter there ill be so much weed on the market in Colorado that prices will plummet.

Finally, IMO, the most important aspect of Colorado's new law isn't being focused on by the sensationalism driven MSM headlines - the fact that farmers in Colorado can now register to grow hemp for commercial as well as R&D purposes. Already hemp has come out of the shadows with country's first legally sanctioned hemp grows holding information fairs across the state. Recreational pot will be legal almost everywhere in a few years. Prices will go up up and down, so will govt. revenues from it because, like Nevada learned once their gambling monopoly ended, pot tourism will dwindle. Hemp will be way more important than the smoking herb. This is big industry, hemp is a game changer in everything. As Jack Herer's 1985 book 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' showed us, from renewable alternative energy to fabrics that eliminate our chemical laden cotton industry, to logging to...almost every sphere of our out of balance world, hemp is the solution waiting for us to recognize it...maybe it's not to late.

La Via Campesina is the international movement which brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.

Sitting Up Mud

"Bokonon made mud. Bokonon said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made, the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job Bokonon had done.

"Nice going, Bokonon. Nobody but you could have done it, I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so little. Thank you for the honor!"

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! "What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night. Amen."

Quotes

"Our dreams draw us foward, as water whispers to the dowser's wand."- Tony Cohan

"Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide." - Tom Robbins

"Politics is how you live your life, not who you vote for!" -Jerry Rubin

"The pencil is mightier than the pen"- Robert Pirsig

"Resist much, obey little." -Walt Whitman

When the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said, “At least the handle is one of us.” — Turkish proverb

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction" - Pascal

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

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Theism?

Flying Spagetti Monster Church

The single greatest service each of us can provide to our planet, our families and ourselves is to grow our own organic food from heritage seeds. Then to save our own seed in turn, and in so doing be part of the future solution to the present day destruction being sown by GMO's, agri-business and the bio-technology giants. - Bob Wiley